Crypto Market Update for 20 May 2020: BTC, XRP, LTC, XTZ, ADA, LINK, and BAND

This article provides an overview of how Bitcoin (BTC), XRP, Litecoin (LTC), Tezos (XTZ), Cardano (ADA), Chainlink (LINK), and Band Protocol (BAND) have been doing over the past 24-hour period, covers recent news that might have affected their prices (or might do so in the future), and looks at interesting tweets about these cryptoassets from prominent members of the crypto community.

To give you a rough idea of how well the crypto markets are doing today, 18 out of the top 20 cryptoassets (by market cap) are currently in the green (against the dollar).

All market data used in this article was taken from CryptoCompare around 12:05 UTC on 20 May 2020.

Bitcoin (BTC)

Bitcoin is currently trading at $9740, which means that it is up 0.16% in the past 24-hour period:

Since Halving Day (i.e. May 11), Bitcoin’s price has gone up from an intraday low of $8,488 on that day to $9,740, where it is now, which means an increase of 14.75%.

Earlier today, Bitcoin’s mining difficulty (aka “network difficulty”) decreased by 6%, as noted by blockchain analytics firm Glassnode in the following tweet:

#Bitcoin difficulty just decreased by 6%.

This adjustment was expected and accounts for the recent decline in hash rate after the halving.

This is only the third downwards difficulty adjustment in 2020 so far.

Chart: https://t.co/zi1xUth1OC pic.twitter.com/OUluH8Mvkb

— glassnode (@glassnode) May 20, 2020

Here is a nice explanation of this metric by Blockchain.com:

“The difficulty is a measure of how difficult it is to mine a Bitcoin block, or in more technical terms, to find a hash below a given target.

“A high difficulty means that it will take more computing power to mine the same number of blocks, making the network more secure against attacks.”

Alejandro De La Torre, Vice President at Poolin, which is one of largest Bitcoin mining pools, said that “this difficulty drop is the sixteenth largest drop in bitcoin’s history”, and then went on ti provide further commentary about why Bitcoin’s hash rate has gone down since the third halving on May 11 and why it should be going up again soon:

This was a wild retarget as there was sky-high hashing before the halving with a marked decrease exactly after halving due to 50% decrease in bitcoin reward (12.5 to 6.25 BTC).
Current hashrate (3 days avg) hashrate at 92.7 EH/s. pic.twitter.com/oFAor7rk9l

— Alejandro De La Torre (@bitentrepreneur) May 20, 2020

I expect hashrate to pick up as more and more new-gen miners come online (s17s & 19s, m20s & 30s, t4s, etc). The rainy season in Sichuan region is just beginning leading to the ‘great miner migration’ which will undoubtedly push the hashrate up in due time as well.

— Alejandro De La Torre (@bitentrepreneur) May 20, 2020

XRP

XRP is currently trading at $0.2048, which means that it is up 0.20% in the past 24-hour period:

Yesterday (May 19), Ripple-backed web content monetization startup Coil, which was founded in 2018 by Stefan Thomas, a former CTO of Ripple, introduced the Coil Web Monetization plugin, thereby “providing publishers and creators on WordPress with an alternative and additive way to monetize their free and premium content.”  

Coil also said that Uphold is its “newest wallet provider”, which means “payouts in more than 50 currencies, and in the U.S., access to Uphold’s new debit card payout feature.”

In an article for Forbes yesterday, Cory Johnson, who used to be Ripple’s Chief Market Strategist, said that “XRP-powered Coil could put crypto transactions into the hands of tens of millions with WordPress deal.”

Here he is explaining how Coil works:

“Coil’s technology notes when a user visits a Coil-enabled site and apportions a payment to that site, paid out in cash or crypto currency — specifically in XRP. “

He went on to say that “this could be the biggest use of XRP outside of the global payments company Ripple.”

Litecoin (LTC)

Litecoin is currently trading at $45.43, which means that it is up 1.14% in the past 24-hour period:

In the year-to-date period, Litecoin, the seventh-most valuable cryptoasset by market cap, has gone up from $0.1927 to $0.1987, which means an increase of 10.26% (against USD).

Yesterday (May 19), Litecoin Foundation told LTC fans to “get ready to use Litecoin for everything from games to hotels.”

Litecoin Foundation said in its press release that it is “entering into a multi-faceted partnership with Atari, one of the world’s most iconic consumer brands and entertainment producers” and that this partnership will “extend into multiple areas, including the use of Litecoin across gaming platforms within the Atari ecosystem, along with other potential ventures, such as joint merchandising.”

Charlie Lee, Managing Director of the Litecoin Foundation, had this to say:

“Many of us remember growing up and playing games from Atari. It is great to see Litecoin being used in a variety of different ways within the Atari ecosystem, from purchasing the new Atari VCS gaming console to being used as a way to invest in Atari Tokens.

“The Litecoin Foundation is excited to see the possibilities a partnership like this can have for not only Litecoin and cryptocurrencies but also the gaming industry and lifelong fans of Atari.”

Tezos (XTZ)

Tezos is currently trading at $2.84, which means that it is up 4.87% in the past 24-hour period:

Earlier today (May 20), Swiss crypto broker Bitcoin Suisse, which is headquartered in Zug, Switzerland, also known as “Crypto Valley”, announced “support for the storage of Tezos (XTZ) including the ability to *delegate, in the **ISAE 3402-audited Bitcoin Suisse Vault.”

The Swiss firm went on to say:

“XTZ holders who wish to safely custody their assets and earn staking rewards can now do so with the security of an institutional-grade crypto custody provider, already trusted with over $1 billion in assets….

“Now with our professional, audited custody services through the Bitcoin Suisse Vault coupled with Bitcoin Suisse’s staking services, there is a complete package for asset managers, fund managers, and high net worth individuals who wish to participate in Tezos staking.”

Philipp Vonmoos, Head of Storage at Bitcoin Suisse, had this to say:

“We are excited to be adding XTZ to the Bitcoin Suisse Vault thereby making XTZ available for clients requiring a fully audited custody service. We are also very impressed by the development of the Tezos ecosystem and by including XTZ in our institutional-grade infrastructure are proud to contribute to that development.”

Cardano (ADA)

Cardano is currently trading at $2.84, which means that it is up 4.87% in the past 24-hour period:

Yesterday, IOHK CEO Charles Hoskinson tweeted some good news:

I think you guys are going to be very happy at the end of the month with the Cardano Product Update. Darko has something special planned to demo for Daedalus that’s been requested for a long time 🙂

— Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) May 19, 2020

On Monday (May 18), crypto-focused behavior analytics startup Santiment commented on Cardano’s recent price rally:

$ADA is quietly creeping up as a hot #altcoin as of late. It has moved +5.4% in the past 24 hours, and +12.8% in the past week. In spite of this, #Cardano‘s mentions have remained low as most of the attention has been on other #alts like $ETH and $OMG.https://t.co/OlNDXuhaQJ pic.twitter.com/9opKkga0OV

— Santiment (@santimentfeed) May 18, 2020

Chainlink (LINK)

Chainlink is currently trading at $4.062, which means that it is up 5.51% in the past 24-hour period:

In the year-to-date period, Chainlink, the 12th most valuable cryptoasset by market cap, has gone up from $1.76 to $4.062, which means an incredible 130.79% (against USD) increase of value.

Yesterday, Chainlink said that hybrid blockchain platform Kadena would be integrating Chainlink to “bring real-world data into its ecosystem.”

Kadena announced in its blog post that this would be “an industry first in deploying oracles to a public/private hybrid blockchain platform”, and went on to explain how this integration would help Kadena developers:

“Enterprises and entrepreneurs in the Kadena ecosystem can utilize Chainlink oracles to create end-to-end Pact smart contracts using Chainlink’s large collection of pre-made inputs and outputs.

“Kadena developers can benefit from Chainlink’s high-quality data by building Price Reference Contracts for market prices and leveraging its external adapter technology for off-chain access to credentialed APIs and legacy systems.”

Band Protocol (BAND)

BAND is currently trading at $1.127, which means that it is up 10.6% in the past 24-hour period:

Band Protocol, which has been described as “A One-Stop Framework for Decentralized Management of Data” and seen by some people as a competitor to Chainlink, has been one of the best performing cryptoassets of 2020.

In the year-to-date period, the price for the BAND token has gone from $0.2225 to $1.127, which means a jaw-dropping 406.51% increase in value.

Scott Melker, a crypto trader at Texas West Capital, says that BAND “looks to be breaking out”:

$BAND

Another nice setup from the newsletter that looks to be breaking out.

You can join anytime you like, I would love to have you.https://t.co/CAtdXmwl3I pic.twitter.com/1BrPRUT97D

— The Wolf Of All Streets (@scottmelker) May 19, 2020

Featured Image by “WorldSpectrum” via Pixabay.com